Dr Burcu Keskin Receives Prestigious Blackmon Moody: The Blackmon Moody Outstanding Professor Award stands as one of the University of Alabama’s most esteemed honors, acknowledging extraordinary contributions in various forms such as research, products, programs, or published material. This year, the well-deserved recipient is Dr. Burcu Keskin, a distinguished professor of operations management at the Culverhouse College of Business.
Dr. Keskin specializes in unraveling the intricacies of supply chain networks, with a particular focus on disrupting illicit supply chains like the wildlife trade and human trafficking. Her impactful research has played a crucial role in supporting law enforcement efforts to dismantle human trafficking networks.
Reflecting on the genesis of her research, Dr. Keskin shared, It was in the back of my mind eating me away like, what can I do, what can I do… I went to the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force Chief at the time. I’m like, what can I do? Tell me some of your problems, maybe we can find a solution together. He actually talked to me for a couple of hours.
Dr. Keskin and her colleagues engage in comprehensive efforts, often sifting through around 100,000 daily online posts to identify potential human trafficking violations. Recognizing the challenge faced by law enforcement in individually assessing each post, she explained, Because there are a hundred thousand of them, it is not necessarily possible for law enforcement to look at each one of them and say, yes, this is real, no, this looks like a scam. One of our biggest contributions to them is actually collecting all that data.
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